Quantum annealing is a quantum analog of the classical simulated annealing described above. And importantly, quantum annealing is the paradigm implemented on the D-Wave Systems quantum annealing computer, which was used in this study to find the solutions to the logistics routing problem instances. Quantum annealing
is meant as a form of adiabatic quantum computing, where an initial quantum
state is subjected to a time-dependent Hamiltonian in such a way that the
state remains in the (approximate) ground state of the Hamiltonian during
evolution. By evolving from a initial “driving” Hamiltonian to a
“problem Hamiltonian”, one that represents the binary optimization
problem instance that we want to solve, measurements of the final ground
state can yield solutions to the binary optimization problem instance [1]}.
